7

When young I marched to a different drum,
loving only the hills and mountains,
but naive fell in with the dust of the
world, which enslaved me for decades.

Birds migrating long for woods of memory,
fish in the bowl yearn for their river.
Reclaiming the south marsh, nature-drunk,
I have returned to the fields and gardens!

I have ten acres
and a nine-room cottage.
Elms and willows crowd the eaves,
peach and plum trees festoon the entry.


Hazy the distant villages.
Steady the smoke from the cottages.
Somewhere in overgrown paths, a dog barks.
Atop a mulberry tree, a cock crows.


At gate, at courtyard, all hush of dust.
In empty rooms, sleep and torpor.
Too long I lived in cages.
Now—earth and freedom!